Jan. 13, 2008

Written by

Alice Gomstyn

The Journal News

SPRING VALLEY - Cynthia Rodriguez knew when it was time to leave the Bronx.

"I definitely felt like I had to make a change," said Rodriguez, 32, a teacher who continues to work in the borough. "I didn't feel safe where I lived."

In late 2004, Rodriguez, her husband, Franklin, who is a house painter, and her three daughters moved from a Bronx apartment to Rockland County. The family initially had looked at homes in Westchester but found the county's property taxes and housing prices tough to stomach.

"Money was an issue for me," Rodriguez said. "I'm just a working-class woman - my husband works, we have two incomes, but it's still very hard to make ends meet with a family of five."

So the couple, with the help of Rodriguez's mother, purchased a three-story townhouse in the village of Spring Valley.

Spring Valley is part of the East Ramapo school district. In recent years, the district has become known for below-average tax increases - a phenomenon often attributed to the district's growing population of residents who don't use the public schools.

Between 2002 and 2005, district voters defeated three proposed school budgets and approved pared spending plans later.

Rodriguez said that her taxes have been manageable and that she supports school budget increases that improve the quality of education in East Ramapo. She is happy, she said, with the education her two school-age children receive in the district, but she wasn't always so enthusiastic.

After moving to Spring Valley, Rodriguez continued to send the children to school in the Bronx for more than a year - an option available to Rodriguez because of her status as a city public school teacher. Rodriguez said she didn't want to take Shayna Rosado, 12, and Soleil Rosado, 8 - Rodriguez's children from a previous relationship - out of a Bronx gifted program that had served the girls well.

Rodriguez also was wary of East Ramapo schools. She said she'd heard "some negative things" about East Ramapo, which routinely trails neighboring districts on standardized test scores.

Rodriguez's perception of East Ramapo changed after she read a publication put together by Spring Valley High School students. In it, students wrote articles urging voters to support a school district budget.

"They made such amazing, mature points ... I was so impressed that these were high school students expressing themselves in this way," she said. "I said, 'This is definitely an OK place for me.'"

Rodriguez enrolled Shayna and Soleil in East Ramapo schools last fall.

Since then, Rodriguez said, she's been pleased with the work the girls have done - particularly in the district's gifted programs - and with the strong sense of community that she feels in East Ramapo schools.

"When I walk into a school, especially as a mom and also as a teacher," she said, "I see what they've got going on, and I'm thinking they've really got some good stuff there."